Tag Archives: USA

In 2007, the United States Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Animal Health Monitoring Service (NAHMS) surveyed US Dairy Herds on a nationwide basis.

They found that 68.1% of US Dairy Herds are infected with Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP), an obligate pathogen which causes Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Johne’s Disease) in cattle, sheep, goats and other food animals. Paratuberculosis is present in milk from infected animals, and is known to survive commercial pasteurization. Live MAP has been cultured from US retail milk supplies.

Mycobacterum avium subspecies paratuberculosis is suspected of causing the human Inflammatory Bowel Disease known as Crohn’s Disease, and there is mounting scientific and medical evidence that at least some proportion of Crohn’s Disease is caused by MAP. If MAP does cause Crohn’s Disease, then it is certain that the primary route of transmission of MAP to humans is through contaminated dairy and meat products.

Live Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) has been cultured from retail milk purchased from stores in California, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

This means that American consumers are being exposed to live bacteria that are known to cause Inflammatory Bowel Disease (Johne’s Disease) in a wide range of animals, including dairy and beef cattle, and is suspected of being a cause of human Crohn’s Disease.

I’d like to draw your attention to a major success in PARA’s drive to find a cure for Crohn’s Disease.

Since the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) hosted a workshop on possible infectious causes of Crohn’s Disease in 1998, attended by all of the PARA Board of Directors, including myself, PARA directors Cheryl Miller and Karen Meyer have worked tirelessly with both NIAID staff and with Crohn’s Disease researchers to obtain funding for those researchers who wish to investigate infectious causes of Crohn’s Disease.

The first spectacular success in this ongoing campaign to find a cure for Crohn’s Disease is the provision of US$1.8 million in funding for researchers who are investigating a infectious cause for Crohn’s Disease, with a strong emphasis on research into Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP).

Steve Merkel is a member of the PARA board of directors. Steve decided to approach his Congressman, Dennis Kucinich, about MAP and Crohn’s Disease. Rep. Kucinich decided that this issue was far too important to ignore, and thus began PARA’s first initiatives on Capitol Hill.

If it wasn’t for Rep. Kucinich, it is quite possible that the NIAID would not have become involved, and thus the MAP/CD hypothesis would still have significant perception problems.

A group of immunologists at UCLA who were investigating antibody responses in IBD (both Crohn’s and UC) focussed on the antibody known as “pANCA”, which is proposed to be of diagnostic use in IBD.

The investigators conducted a search for microbial antigens that pANCA binds to. The surprising result they found was that, in a percentage of Crohn’s patients, pANCA reacts strongly with a protein which is shared among several species of mycobacteria.

When I attended the U.S. Animal Health Association meeting in Minnesota, October 1998, there was a lecture on the legal perspectives in the paratuberculosis/Crohn’s situation.

The most important point made for sellers of cattle was that if they make a statement “This cow does not have Johne’s disease”, then they are legally liable if the cow does actually turn out to have JD, a strongly possible occurrence due to the inaccuracy of current testing methods for JD. The only statement they can make is that “This cow has tested negative for Johne’s disease, by methods X, Y, and Z”.

A mother on the USA, Karen Meyer, has a son who has Crohns disease. She is very concerned that her son may have contracted Crohns from consumption of food contaminated with the bacterium M paratuberculosis, and is concerned that many other people in the USA may contract Crohns disease, again possibly as a result of consumption of contaminated food.

She has attempted to find out what actions the US government is taking to ensure that food purchased and consumed by the public at large is indeed safe. She has been in touch with several government agencies, including the FDA, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Animal Health Association.

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis has been extensively researched as a cause of Crohns disease, and much of that research indicates that Mycobacterium paratuberculosis is responsible for at least some cases of Crohns.

Mycobacterium paratuberculosis infects the milk supply. It is shed by infected cows in their milk, and it is not killed by standard pasteurization techniques. 2.9% of all dairy cattle in the USA are infected with Mycobacterium paratuberculosis.